FORMS OF LIFE 



pression as compared with a shapeless piece of wood, a 

 crystal as compared with a stone, a sky-blue or golden- 

 yellow spot as compared with a greenish-blue or dull- 

 yellow one (in music a simple pure bell-tone as com- 

 pared with a shrill whistle). 2. Rhythmic beauty (the 

 subject of linear aesthetics) ; the aesthetic sensation is 

 caused by the serial repetition of some simple form — 

 for instance, a pearl necklace, a chainlike community 

 of monera (nostoc) or of cells (diatomes, A.-f, 84, figs. 

 7 and 9): in music a tasteful series of simple notes. 3. 

 Actinal beauty (the subject of radial aesthetics); the 

 pleasure is excited by the orderly arrangement of three 

 or more homogeneous .simple forms about a common 

 centre, from which they radiate; for instance, a regular 

 cross or a radiating star, the three counter-pieces in the 

 iris-bloom, the four paramera in the body of the medusa, 

 the five radial-pieces in the star-fish. The familiar ex- 

 perience of the kaleidoscope shows how amply the simple 

 radial constellation of three or more simple figures may 

 delight our aesthetic sense (in music we have the simple 

 harmony of several simultaneous notes). 4. Symmet- 

 rical beauty (the subject of bilateral aesthetics) ; the 

 pleasure is caused by the relation of a simple object to 

 its like, the mutual completion of two similar halves (the 

 right and left parts). When we fold a piece of paper 

 over an ink-stain in such a way that it is equally im- 

 pressed on both halves of the fold, we get a symmetrical 

 figure which makes an agreeable impression on our nat- 

 ural sense of space or equilibrium. 



The aesthetic impressions in indirect associational 

 beauty (the subject of associative or symbolical aesthet- 

 ics) are not only much more varied and complex than 

 those we have described, but they also play a much more 

 important part in the life of man and the higher animals. 

 The anatomic condition for this higher physiological 

 function is the elaborate construction of the brain in the 



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